The Liar’s Girl by Catherine Ryan Howard
My rating: 2 of 5 stars
I voluntarily read and reviewed an ARC of this book. All thoughts and opinions are my own.
I love murder mysteries and I’m kind of ashamed that I don’t read enough of them, but when I saw this book pop up in my recommendations, I was excited to give it a try.
I really liked the beginning; it had great potential and had a good hook that kept me going for a while. Unfortunately, it fell rather flat and lost all interest for me about halfway through.
I found the protagonist intriguing enough to stick with the story, but I saw the author made decisions regarding the character’s personality traits that began to raise some flags for me. These only intensified as the story went on and made it a bit of a boring read. I understand what the author was going for, but the story ended up only focusing on the character’s self-absorbed and self-centred nature.
Too much focus was placed on her inner thoughts, feelings, and only her perspective of the events that are unfolding. At one point I was wondering, if this was still the same murder mystery novel I began in the first place.
I felt confused about what the plot is supposed to be; a murder mystery that gets finally solved or a woman’s journey on how she overcame the trauma of having been a serial killer’s girlfriend. I mean, obviously there is room for both, but in this case it is first a little of the murder mystery and then a whole chunk of the woman’s inner thoughts.
It got boring and uninteresting. I was frustrated and felt reading this book became more of a chore than something I was looking forward to.
The writing wasn’t bad. The author had a great writing style that flowed nicely. Sadly, this wasn’t enough to ensure an entertaining read.
Overall, I’m afraid I have to pass on this book. As I said before, I love murder mysteries. It is how I relax and unwind. But this book just made me more tense and agitated. I can’t recommend it.
